South Korea permitted a citizen to visit North Korea for the first time in 2016 after a religious leader who had defected to the North passed away this month, South Korea’s Ministry of Unification (MoU) told reporters on Thursday.

South Korean Choi In-guk is the second son of Ryu Mi Yong, chairwoman of the Central Committee of the Chondoist Chongu Party and a member of the DPRK’s rubber-stamp Presidium of Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA).

“The second son applied [for permission] to visit North Korea after receiving the news that his mother was in a critical condition,” the MoU told local reporters